Installing Software

The AI install image is not a complete installation. Client machines must access an IPS package repository to complete their installation. The AI manifest must specify at least one package repository location and must specify names of packages to install.

Use the <software> tag to define locations of package repositories and names of particular packages to install.

The <software> tag has the following elements:

• <source> – Required. Use this element to specify where AI should get packages to install. See Specifying a Source of Packages to Install.

• <software_data> – Required. Use this element to specify names of packages to install. A particular set of packages is required for every automated installation. You can choose to install additional packages. See Specifying Packages to Install.

An AI manifest is not required to have an equal number of <source> and <software_data> elements. One <software> element could have more <source> elements than <software_data> elements, or one <software> element could have more <software_data> elements than <source> elements.

Specifying a Source of Packages to Install

A repository is a location where IPS packages are published and from where packages are retrieved. A repository can be on the local network, or a repository can be on the Internet. A person or corporation who puts a package in a repository is called a publisher. Each AI manifest must specify at least one IPS package repository to install the Oracle Solaris OS.

Use the <source> tag to specify a location where AI should get packages to install. One <software> element can contain more than one <source> element. Each <source> element can specify either an IPS package publisher or a directory path.

• <publisher> – Each AI manifest must specify at least one <publisher> element because a particular set of IPS packages is required for every Oracle Solaris automated installation. The <publisher> element has an optional name attribute. The <publisher> element has the following elements:

  • <origin> – Required. The <origin> element has a required name attribute that gives the primary URI of this IPS package repository. A <publisher> element can have only one <origin> element.

  • <mirror> – Optional. The <mirror> element has a required name attribute that gives an additional URI for this same IPS package repository. A <publisher> element can have more than one <mirror> element.

  A mirror is different from multiple repositories. A mirror is a separate location for a repository that has the same content as the <origin> repository in the same <publisher> element. To specify additional repositories with different content, use additional <source> elements.

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  Note - The first IPS repository specified in an AI manifest is the preferred source for all IPS packages. If a particular IPS package is not found in the preferred repository, then additional IPS repositories are searched in the order in which they are specified in the AI manifest. See also Example 4-23.

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• <dir> – Optional. Each <source> element must have either a <publisher> element or a <dir> element. The <dir> element has a required path attribute that gives the path to one or more packages to install.

Example 4-20 Specifying IPS Package Repositories

In this example, solaris is the preferred IPS package publisher. This is the repository that will be searched first for IPS packages. This repository must contain the packages that are required to install the Oracle Solaris OS. This repository must contain packages for the Oracle Solaris OS that is the same release as the AI boot image that is associated with this install service.

The mirror_repo repository contains exactly the same content as the solaris repository. This repository will be used if the connection to the solaris repository is too slow.

The additional_repo repository contains content that is different from the content in the solaris repository. This repository will be used if a specified IPS package is not found in the solaris repository. The additional_repo repository could be a repository on the local network that contains custom IPS packages, for example.

<software name="IPS">
  <source>
    <publisher name="solaris">
      <origin name="http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release"/>
      <mirror name="http://pkg.mirror_repo"/>
    </publisher>
  </source>
  <source>
    <publisher>
      <origin name="http://pkg.additional_repo"/>
    </publisher>
  </source>
</software>

Specifying an HTTP Proxy to Reach an IPS Repository

A client needs to access an IPS repository to install the Oracle Solaris OS. In the recommended configuration described in Chapter 1, Automated Installer Overview, a DHCP server sends DNS information to the client. This DNS information is used to resolve the IPS repository URI to an IP address.

If a client does not have a direct connection to the IPS repository server, the AI manifest can specify a proxy to enable the client to get outside its network. This proxy applies to all publishers.

The value of the http_proxy attribute of the <ai_instance> element is the URL of the proxy as follows:

<auto_install>
  <ai_instance name="AI_manifest_name" http_proxy="http://192.168.0.101:8080">
    AI_manifest_contents
  </ai_instance>
</auto_install>

Specifying Packages to Install

The AI boot image is not a complete installation. Client machines must access an IPS package repository to complete their installation. The default AI manifest shows the minimum packages that must be installed to install the Oracle Solaris OS. List packages to be installed in a <software_data> element inside a <software> element in the AI manifest.

The <software_data> tag has the following attributes:

• action – Optional. The value install is the default if action is not specified. Other possible actions are uninstall and noinstall. Example 4-21 discusses the use of uninstall. Identify and Install Missing Drivers on an Install Target discusses using noinstall.

• type – Optional. The value IPS is the default if type is not specified. IPS is the only valid type of package in this section of the AI manifest. Identify and Install Missing Drivers on an Install Target shows examples of installing different types of packages in the <add_drivers> section of the AI manifest.

The <software_data> element contains <name> elements. Each <name> element specifies the name of a package to install. For IPS packages, the <name> element can specify the repository to use. See Example 4-23.

Example 4-21 Specifying the Minimum IPS Packages To Install

This example shows the minimum IPS packages that must be installed to install the Oracle Solaris OS.

This example also specifies packages to be uninstalled. The packages to be uninstalled are group packages. Group packages are package definitions that are used for convenience to install a set of other packages. You cannot uninstall an individual package that was installed with a group package unless you first uninstall the group package definition. Uninstalling the group package definition does not uninstall all the packages that were installed with the group package. The babel_install package is a group package that installs slim_install, which is another group package. After installation, both slim_install and babel_install are uninstalled so that a user can later uninstall other packages that were installed as part of slim_install and babel_install. The ability to uninstall packages is needed to update and customize the installation. The babel_install package definition must be uninstalled first so that the slim_install package definition can be uninstalled.

<software name="IPS">
  <software_data type="IPS">
    <name>pkg:/entire</name>
    <name>pkg:/babel_install</name>
  </software_data>
  <software_data action="uninstall" type="IPS">
    <name>pkg:/babel_install</name>
    <name>pkg:/slim_install</name>
  </software_data>
</software>

Example 4-22 Specifying Additional IPS Packages To Install

In this example, Oracle Solaris Studio and the NetBeans DTrace GUI Plug-in are installed.

<software name="IPS">
  <software_data type="IPS">
    <name>pkg:/developer/sunstudio12u1</name>
    <name>pkg:/developer/netbeans/plugin/nb-dtrace</name>
  </software_data>
</software>

Example 4-23 Specifying the IPS Repository in the Package Name

In this example, the OpenOffice suite of tools and the Evolution mail and calendaring utility are installed from the example.com IPS repository.

<software name="IPS">
  <source>
    <publisher name="solaris">
      <origin name="http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release"/>
    </publisher>
  </source>
  <source>
    <publisher name="example.com">
      <origin name="http://pkg.example.com/release"/>
    </publisher>
  </source>
  <software_data type="IPS">
    <name>pkg://example.com/openoffice</name>
    <name>pkg://example.com/mail/evolution</name>
  </software_data>
</software>